


The Stars are Eternal

by AnExtremelyAgitatedHedgehog



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Historical, Revolutionary War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-09
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2018-09-23 04:22:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9640553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnExtremelyAgitatedHedgehog/pseuds/AnExtremelyAgitatedHedgehog
Summary: Inside - A journey across the sea, a meeting of brothers, and a war that will change the world.





	1. The Journey

**Author's Note:**

> (Hey people, this is a long story I'm bringing over from fanfiction. It is finished, and I'm in the process of bringing it over here. If you want to read the completed version you can read it there).
> 
> Hello, everyone! Thanks for taking the time to look at my story. It means a lot to me. Anyway, this is going to be a hopefully very long project. When I first started looking at Hetalia fanfiction, I was sure that everyone and their mother had written a Revolutionary War fanfic, but to my surprise, I didn't find very many. So, here's my own rendition. I tried to make it deep without sounding super pretentious, but we'll see how it goes. I've rambled on enough, so please rate and review, and enjoy!
> 
> Oh! Almost forgot! I really had fun doing research for this story, and wanted to show off my knowledge, so I've included some historical notes for things that I mention in passing. Feel free to read them if you want!

"I like the stars. It's the illusion of permanence, I think. I mean, they're always flaring up and caving in and going out. But from here, I can pretend...I can pretend that things last. I can pretend that lives last longer than moments. Gods come, and gods go. Mortals flicker and flash and fade. Worlds don't last; and stars and galaxies are transient, fleeting things that twinkle like fireflies and vanish into cold and dust. But I can pretend..."

― **Neil Gaiman**

* * *

Chapter One

The Journey

April 11th, 1683

The waves on the never-ending ocean crashed against the hull of the sturdy galleon, which swayed in the wake of the flowing water. Arthur hung from the ratline, the braided knot of rope that ran from the deck of the ship to the crows nest above, hanging by his feet, held securely in place by the rope which he'd tangled around them. He breathed in the warm afternoon air, salty on his tongue. Yes, the "Pirate's life for him" was certainly the proper phrase to describe the pure bliss that he was feeling right now. Technically, he was a Privateer. He flew the King's flag, and plundered in his name. But that was fine, because he still got basic free reign of the boundless sea, and got to raid that bastard France's ship at his leisure.

For the first time in many years, there was relative peace in his empire. Everything, he'd thought, had been going pretty smoothly in "Merry-Old-England", until there was that nasty business with Oliver Cromwell and the "Commonwealth of England" (1). It had sprung up out of practically nowhere and plunged Britain into a ten-year-long stint as a Republic. This had, of course, not ended well, and eventually Charles II was declared King of England, Scotland, _and_ Ireland on top of that, and everyone, most of all Arthur, tried to forget that the last ten years had ever happened.

Arthur had been a bit agitated after that, he supposed. Part of it must have been the obvious shock associated with suddenly going from a Monarchy to a Republic, and then back to a Monarchy just as quickly, but part of it had also been the (What was it now, five?) groups of Christian denominations that had been making a big stink about just who was the holiest lately. The Irish were Catholic, the Scottish Presbyterian, and then there were these radical new groups, the Puritans and the Quakers, to shake things up, while all the while the Protestant Church of England tried it darndest to keep its ever-weakening grip on the populous. All of this together had caused Arthur to go through a bit of an identity crisis, he supposed, and so good old Charlie had suggested that Arthur take a short break from being the Anthropomorphic Personification of a whole bloody country and just try to be Arthur Kirkland for a while.

At first, he'd been a little confused by the question. He already _was_ Arthur Kirkland; it was impossible to be anyone one else. The King explained what he meant: "You need to take a holiday, Arthur. Your mood has been making it difficult for me to run _your_ country"

"I am _not_ being difficult!" Arthur interjected, mouth agape, but then promptly shut in when he realized just how ironic that statement combined with his usual testy tone of voice was.

Charles had laughed, then. Strained, tired as it was, it conveighed just how difficult it must have been to rule the empire in its present state. Arthur probably wasn't helping much with his whining and constant diatribes about his _bloody_ empire should, could, and would be run. Maybe the King was right, he should take a holiday.

"Why don't you go sailing?" The King suggested, and continued on when Arthur visibly perked up. He'd always loved sailing, from the first day he'd set foot on a fishing boat as a little lad. Such a long time ago, that was. "I could set you up with a ship and crew, and you could go privateering for a while. Destroy some French ships", he added hopefully, knowing very well that Arthur detested his perverted cousin. "Blow off some steam?"

"By jove, I think you might be onto something". Arthur had practically beamed at the thought of being on the open sea again, much to the King's maybe too obvious relief. But Arthur let it slide. He _had_ been a bit of an uptight wanker recently. And maybe it _would_ be nice to take a break for a few months.

Which had, by one way or another, led him to where he was now: dangling by his feet on the ratline, breathing in the ocean air and rocking in the waves. He wondered, briefly, what would happened if he simply never went back to Britain at all; if he simply wandered the sea forever. But he pushed that thought from his mind. He'd have to go back eventually, the empire would fall to bloody ruins without him there to keep it all in order.

"Captain!" One of the Swabbies down on the deck called up to him. He was young, maybe only six- or seventeen, with dark, freckled skin from working in the sun all day. Arthur opened his eyes and, still upside down, turned towards him. "There's a ship approaching starboard", he pointed off to the right side of the ship.

"Really?" Arthur asked. He grabbed the ropes and, with a little effort, managed to untangle his feet from the rigging. He flipped right side up and jumped the few feet down to the deck, his bare feet making a hollow thump on the rough wood. They hadn't seen another ship for weeks. The ocean was vast, bigger than one might think, and Arthur had been getting antsy. What would it be this time? Portuguese? Spanish? He hadn't tangled with Antonio in a while, might be fun to mess with the tomato-loving bugger.

He glanced over the starboard side of his galleon, and sure enough, a small schooner was bouncing over the small waves towards them. Arthur deflated. That one simply wouldn't be worth his time, his trained plunderer's eye could tell that right away. It would be low on defenses, hard to fit a big cannon on a small ship, and easy to take with the larger ship, but because of it's minuscule girth, there was almost no chance of valuable cargo.

Arthur waved it off. "It's too small. No point", he told the Swabbie, and was about to climb the ratline once again for a few more hours of totally meaningful contemplation when the Swabbie tapped him on the shoulder.

"But Captain, it's coming right towards us."

Taking a second glance, Arthur realized quickly that the Swabbie was indeed correct. The schooner was closer now, and what was that? One of the small figures was pulling the rigging, and the British flag came into view above the ship. "Oh", Arthur said, "We'll wait for them, then".

By then, most of the crew had heard the commotion and had begun to gather on the deck. Word travelled fast on a ship. They were a rag-tag crew, mostly ex-navy men and boys too young to yet join the said establishment. They had always thought that there was something strange about their Captain; he was a little _too_ young to be such an expert of the sea, and his wounds healed a little _too_ quickly. But that was really all part of being a Nation. Arthur had _looked_ twenty-five for the last two hundred years, and he couldn't really be killed by the normal means in which a man met his end. The crew knew none of this, of course; it was the world's best kept secret. But sailors were birds of a feather...err, well maybe fish of a scale was a more apt expression, but either way, sailors stuck together. They were able to overlook their Captain's oddities due to the fact that he simply a damned good Captain.

"Be so good to reef the sails, aye lads?" He commanded the crew, who obeyed without question, setting off a few, "Aye Cap'n!"s as they did so. This was exactly why Arthur preferred piracy over the navy. In the navy, it was all formal and stuffy. You obeyed your superior because, well, he was your _superior_. But on a Pirate's crew, you did what your Captain told you because there was a bond of mutual respect between Captain and crew. Because if your Captain was a wanker, you could always just kill him and elect a new one. Luckily for Arthur, there were no signs of mutiny on _his_ boat. It was a sense of pride for him that someone trusted him not because of who he was, but because of what he could do.

The crew got to work right away, yanking ropes and chains this way and that, and soon the sails collapsed against the mast. The schooner was approaching quickly now, it's small size enabling the wind to blow it over the water much faster than the galleon (which Arthur had named Old Bess) could ever have moved. Arthur ran across the deck and retrieved his black, leather boots from where they'd been lying on some ropes, and stuck them on haphazardly. He wanted to be prepared in case this encounter went sideways.

Gliding silently through the water, the schooner pulled up alongside Old Bess. The crew all stood on the starboard side looking down on the boat, an intimidating force to behold. Arthur himself stood at the front of the crowd, one hand on the thin blade tied to his waist. "Who goes there?" He asked the figures on the smaller vessel.

"Captain Arthur Kirkland?" One of them asked, shielding his eyes against the sun which rested behind the galleon.

"That would be me", Arthur smirked.

"The King requests an audience", the man on the boat said. Arthur heard the crew behind him break into whispers. The King wants to meet with our Captain? Kirkland must be a pretty important guy to talk to the King of bloody England.

"Alright", Arthur nodded, trying to act non-chalantly, but secretly beaming with pride because his crew thought he was important. Which he was, it was true. But most of the time, he didn't really care what the common herd thought of him. His crew though, they were the ones he really wanted to impress. "We'll just head back to Merry Old England then", he continued, about to turn back to the crowd to give the order.

The man on the boat interrupted. "The King thinks that it will be faster if you come with us". He sounded grim. Because by faster, he really meant safer. The empire had made a lot of enemies in its day, many of whom would like to see Arthur out of the picture entirely.

"Sounds fine", Arthur shrugged. And with that, he patted the side of his ship ("Goodbye old girl") and was about to jump onto the schooner, when the Swabbie interrupted "But what about _us?_ What will _we_ do now?"

"You elect a new Captain and keeps going, mates. You're a fine crew. You don't need me. It's simple", he grabbed his tri-corner hat, the ostentatious one with the huge white feather in it that he'd earlier discarded on the top of a barrel. "Here, you be Captain", he said, placing the hat firmly on the Swabbie's head. The replacement wouldn't last, he knew that. A Swabbie of all people wouldn't make a good Captain, but he wanted to make an unforgettable exit. How else would they remember him?

"Cheerio, chaps", Arthur used the stunned silence of the crew to jump onto the schooner without any hindrances. He waved as the schooner pulled away and began to move back towards land.

Arthur smiled. It had been a good holiday, what with the sword fights and swinging from ropes across the deadly sea towards a foreign vessel, but now it was time for him to get back to work.

"How long have I been gone?" He asked the man at the helm, who seemed to be in charge of the whole operation.

"About two years".

Two years? Arthur could have sworn that it had only been a month or two, tops. Time certainly did fly when you weren't thinking about it.

"Where _are_ we headed?" Arthur asked.

"To London, Mr. Britain", the man replied. "You _do_ have an audience with the King, after all".

* * *

Slowly, taking their time as rich people often did, the most influential lords and ladies of British society left the throne room. Their voices echoed off of the walls of the hollow space, which were covered in tapestries and murals done by some of the finest artists in the empire. Most depicted great battles and victories from the past, most of which Arthur was present for, or remembered hearing about at the very least.

A few of the distinguished guests nodded at Arthur, or conversed briefly with him before taking their leave, but overall, he didn't attract much attention. And that was the way he liked it. The less people noticed him, the less likely they were to wonder about his incredible longevity.

"You know, you look just like your grandfather", one of the older lords of some place or another commented as he past Arthur. Luckily, he was completely senile, at least he gave that impression when he was talking to birds or insisted in the middle of dead winter that he wanted to go out on a stroll, but in this case he was right. Arthur _did_ look like his Grandfather because technically, he _was_ his own grandpa. He had been posing in the British court scene as a member of the Kirkland family for centuries.

"Spitting image, really", the old man muttered as a younger relative guided him away with an apologetic look on her youthful face. Arthur waved her off. She looked relieved, and ambled over to the great double doors leading out of the throne room with the old man in tow.

It was too bad, really, that the old man had gotten to be that way. Arthur remembered when he was younger, a jovial man, and a wonderful person to nip down to the pub with for a few drinks when the weather was especially bitter. That was one of the drawbacks of being a nation, Arthur supposed. As long as his country thrived, Arthur would never grow old, or die, like all of his friends and really, everyone around him, leaving him powerless to attempt to join them. That very reason was the cause of why Arthur tried not to get close to anyone, because they just had to go and die on you anyway. So what was the point?

Arthur had arrived a little early, though court had officially ended at half past two. It was now three o'clock, and the room probably wouldn't be completely empty until quarter to four. But while he didn't get attached, Arthur still loved to observe. These were the finest people of _his_ country after all. He wouldn't be very much of a personification if he didn't take an interest now, would he?

Of course, he _did_ have actual business to attend to. His audience with Charlie was scheduled right after court, but they couldn't very well discuss top secret affairs with a horde of loose-lipped nobles around, waiting for the juiciest piece of gossip to fall into their laps. So Arthur contented himself with observing the crowd. It was so hilarious to him how all of these people were so far into their own little worlds that they worried about things like which dress or tie would go best with this hat when their were bigger problems like colonists over in the New World getting slaughtered by savages and starving to death. It amused him more than anything. Maybe, in his old age, he was becoming curmudgeonly. He didn't really know.

Gradually, the chatter and noise died down as the mass of people with nothing better to do left the throne room. Arthur didn't hold it against them, never could. _They_ didn't know that a top secret meeting would commence just as soon as they decided that it might be time to leave, so felt no need to hurry.

Charles II (2), King of not just one or two, but three countries, sat utop his ornate, bejeweled throne. Arthur thought privately that it looked really uncomfortable. He looked tired, even more so than when Arthur had left, with great bags under his eyes highlighted by the many creases and folds that lined his aging face. Arthur had seen this happen to many a monarch; his, France's, everyone's really. Eventually, the toil and labor of running a country caught up with a monarch, who then grew old and died. Just like everyone else. They were only mortal after all; Sometimes Arthur forgot that. This one still made him sad, though. Charlie had been a good King as far as King's go. He was certainly no Queen Elizabeth, but then again, Arthur was sure that never in a million years would anyone be able to top Old Bess in Queenliness.

"Hello, Arthur", the King said to the empty room, and Arthur emerged from behind a marble pillar where he'd been semi-hiding/skulking. "It's been a while, my old friend. Did you have a nice holiday?"

Arthur nodded. "Most certainly. I find that a little sea air will do anyone good". He approached the throne, and bowed deeply before the King.

"Oh for Christ's sake, Kirkland! You of all people need not bow to me. Frankly, I'm sick of all the bowing and scraping before my excellence all of the damn bloody time". The King rolled his eyes.

Arthur smiled and stood, one man alone in front of the great throne, the symbol of British superiority. "Yes, my liege", he smirked, for sure that he was getting under the King's skin.

The King graciously ignored the jibe. "Now as much as I've missed your antics, it's time to get down to business. I called you back for a reason, Arthur".

"I figured as much. Having fun without me, eh?"

"Actually, it was quite peaceful not having someone hanging over your shoulder all day", the King confessed, shrugging. "But anyway, I've been thinking a lot about the colonies lately. Have you ever been to the colonies, Arthur?"

"Briefly", said Arthur, "Maybe ... sixty years ago?" That had not, Arthur would freely admit, been very fun. He hadn't gone for England, or the empire. Plymouth had only loosely been a British colony at that point, and the Nations had all been very interested on if the venture had succeeded. So Arthur had hired a ship and traveled with Spain, the Netherlands, and, he thought with a shudder, the _Toad_ (France). They had started in the early spring, and reached Plymouth in May.

It hadn't been pleasant. The colonists had frankly been idiots. They hadn't brought enough food to last the winter, and more than half of them had died from either starvation or cold. The whole settlement smelled of death, and many of the corpses hadn't even been buried. Needless to say, Arthur hadn't gone back to America since then.

"Now, I don't know much about your kind. You Nations", the King continued. "But I'm wondering something". He paused then, as if pondering how to continue. "How is it that you are ... born?"

Arthur stopped mid breath. He didn't know much about that either, if he was honest, but he tried to be helpful. "We aren't really ... born per say. We just kind of appear? Sorry", he added, "But I'm just about as clueless as you are".

"Maybe you can't really help me, then", the King said, trying to hide his disappointment. But then he became thoughtful, and seemed to decide something. He continued. "But just hypothetically, what do you think of the odds that a Nation might 'appear' in one of the Colonies?"

Now it was Arthur's turn to pause. The thought had never even crossed his mind. It didn't really seem possible. The Colonies were an extension of Great Britain, an extension of _himself_. A Nation could never actually appear there, could it? He almost replied with a resounding no, when a thought occurred to him: Why not? If countries could have personifications, why not colonies? In fact, the more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.

_Why not?_

"I don't know", Arthur replied truthfully, "But I certainly don't think that it's _im_ possible".

"Really?" Asked the King, clearly intrigued. "But if that's true, isn't that Colony more likely to rebel against us, to want to become an actual Nation?"

"... Possibly", said Arthur, trying to sound knowledgeable, although he himself was beginning to get completely lost. A Colony had never gotten a personification in the past, at least to Arthur's knowledge, but it wasn't like these things had rules. They just kind of happened. Although, if they did have rules, they were incredibly complicated and esoteric to anyone not in the know. Arthur was not in the know.

But it _did_ make sense. If in fact a Colony _could_ have a personification, then by extension that meant that that person would probably try to become a Nation. It's what Arthur would have done. And having a revolution in the Colonies was the last thing that the empire needed right now.

"And if this was possible, one would think that we would want to get this nation on our side. Make him proud to be part of the empire, wouldn't we?" The King asked.

What was he getting at? There must have been a point, or he wouldn't have been talking about it in the first place. Charlie was a very professional man, he didn't bring up philosophy for philosophy's sake; there _must_ have been a reason. "Yes", Arthur replied cautiously.

"I'm glad you agree" The King smiled. "Because you're going to the Colonies to find out".

And there it was. The punch to the gut, the whole point of this conversation was brutally driven into Arthur's skull. He wanted to get rid of him again. "What?" He sputtered. It wasn't simply _that_ easy to find a Nation, the King must have known that. Arthur didn't know the first thing about finding a Nation, let alone persuade it into being complacent in its role as a Colony. The last time he'd checked, Arthur was not the most persuasive person he knew.

"Yes. And I know the perfect place to start", said the King with complete confidence. "A colony was founded in America just two short years ago, right after you left actually, by a man named William Penn. It's called Pennsylvania (3)".

"Penn's woods (4)?" Arthur asked, using his extremely limited knowledge of Latin.

"Exactly", the King nodded. "A city's going up there now. Philadelphia. It seems like the perfect place for a Nation to appear, wouldn't you agree?"

No was what he wanted to say. Finding a Nation simply wasn't that easy. One would think that a new Nation would be drawn to his or her people, but usually they were actually quite shy. But again, Arthur really didn't _know_. Every case he'd ever witnessed, which was not many, was completely different. But he knew that once Charlie had made up his mind, there was no changing it. And he could do whatever he wanted. He _was_ the King of _bloody_ England, after all.

So Arthur simply shrugged and said "Sounds like a fine plan. When do I leave?"

* * *

The voyage across the Atlantic Ocean would take a little more than two months, and had left barely a day after Arthur got back to London. It certainly didn't leave much time for Arthur to rest, and Arthur wondered if the King would have gotten him on the ship regardless to if he'd actually agreed to the plan or not. But time was most certainly of the essence. Charlie wasn't young anymore. He didn't have much time left.

So, after saying a very brief hello and goodbye to his capital city, Arthur found himself on a huge merchant ship, packed in with as many colonists heading to the New World as it could possibly fit. The King had insisted that Arthur go under the guise of a merchant, so that the people on the boat wouldn't think too hard about the amount of money a simple colonist could possess, but also so that he wouldn't be _so_ important as to attract too much attention to himself.

This was all fine and well, he supposed. He got his own cabin on the ship, which was more than most colonists could say. They were packed as tightly as sardines in the hold below deck. Arthur tried to avoid going down there. It was hot and crowded, and the smell of too many bodies packed into too small a space hung in the blistering air. Most people ate in the dark so they couldn't see what was crawling on their plates (5).

There wasn't much to do on the ship. Arthur helped the sailors when he could, but they mostly insisted that he was a gentleman, and shouldn't be brought so low as to have to do the manual labor that the sailors had been hired to do. He'd tell them that it was really no trouble, but they laughed him off, or would tell him to go back to his cabin and "count his money". One would think that something close to a thousand years worth of life would imbue one with incredible patience, but even Arthur was chafing from the inevitable boredom that set in.

It _did_ leave him with a lot of time to think though. And his mind kept drifting to just what he was going to do when he got to America and actually began his mission proper. The plan, in theory, was simple: Once he got to Boston Harbor, he'd have a short time to acquire a horse and ride to Philadelphia. He would then take up residence in an empty house there (Ordered by the King himself to be built) and search for the Nation, if it even existed.

This was where it got complicated. Charlie was, unfortunately naïve in the ways of the New World, never actually having been there. He simply had no concept of just how big it really was, and how many people were there. And the Nation could be absolutely _anywhere_. The mission was, in reality, hopeless, but he hadn't told Charlie that. Truth be told, he simply didn't want to let the old man down. Still, he had no idea how to even _begin_ looking for a Nation. In his opinion, if it didn't want to be found, it never would. It would know the territory like the back of it's hand, which left Arthur at a significant disadvantage. The thought that this Nation might _want_ to be found never even crossed his mind.

"What are you doing?" Asked a high-pitched voice, and Arthur realized that he'd been muttering "Bloody impossible" over and over to himself for the last five minutes. He looked up from the wood knot on the deck that he'd been having a staring contest with and saw a young girl, with big green eyes staring at him from behind a crate.

"Oh, hello", Arthur said, smiling at her. He had always had a soft spot for children. They were simply too young and innocent to bugger things up as their adult counterparts often did. They were also, he had discovered, far more perceptive, and could often tell that there was something different about him. "I was just thinking".

"You must do an awful lot of it then", she said, stepping around the crate and padding closer to him with shoe less feet. His face softened from it's previous scowl, and she smiled back at him. The wind blew her strawberry blonde hair into her face, and she pulled it away, revealing a slightly dirt-smudged cheek. Just where the dirt had actually _come_ from on a ship made of wood Arthur could only guess. "You've been sitting there for a long time".

"He chuckled. "An astute observation", he said. "What are you doing so far from the other children?" He asked.

She rolled her eyes. "All they want to do is play jacks. I'm bored of jacks. And Mummy told me to leave her alone, 'cause she has a headache".

"I think anyone would get a headache being stuck in the hold for this long". He patted her on the head. "Hey", he began, "What's your name?"

"Karen Carter".

"Alright then, Karen Carter. Why don't you tell me why you're going such a long way on this ship?"

"Because Mummy said we can have a new life there. She says we'll make lots of money and have a big house and everything. We had to move after Daddy left". Karen frowned, clearly a touchy subject.

"You know", said Arthur, "I think she's right. It sure sounds like anything can happen in America".

"That's what she said". Karen beamed, happier now.

"Now why don't you go to the other children, and show them just who the master of jacks is?"

"Alright". She began to run to the other end of the deck, where a group of children were huddled in a clump around some bits of metal. Then she turned back to Arthur and waved. "Bye!"

He waved back, smiled. He felt better now, too, like maybe this mission wasn't as hopeless as he'd thought. Because anything could happen in America...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Historical Notes:
> 
> (1) Oliver Cromwell was a military commander/extreme Puritan who was kind of a crazy zealot in the fact that he believed "God guided his victories". He was one of the major players in the Commonwealth of England, which was a brief period in history in which England was a Republic. After his death in 1658, the Republic kind of collapsed, and Charles II was crowned the King of England.
> 
> (2) Charles II was a young man when crowned the King of England, but very quickly lost his crown to Cromwell as the revolution commenced. He lived in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Netherlands for ten years until the Commonwealth of England collapsed and he was invited back as rightful King of England.
> 
> (3) Pennsylvania was founded in 1681 by William Penn, a Quaker. They were a Christian denomination which believed in a more direct relationship with the powers that be than other groups. Pennsylvania had one of the best relationships with the neighboring Native Americans, thanks much in part to Penn's peaceful ways.
> 
> (4) Fun Fact: Sylvania is "forest" or "woods" in Latin, so Pennsylvania actually means Penn's woods.
> 
> (5) This is actually true. Because ships were often at sea for months at a time, the food they had brought with them would rot and maggots and other delectable bugs would make homes in it. This was one of the reasons that people were so crazy about getting their hands on spices at the time, which helped to preserve food.


	2. The Meeting

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoo hoo! I'm right on time this week! Yay! And it's even tech week for the musical I'm in right now, so double yay! We'll see if I can actually keep this up.
> 
> Also, figured I should mention this now: Even though I do ship USUK, it won't be featured in this story because I wanted to focus more on the familial relationship between the two characters. So because I ship it, you might see it if you look sideways (that is, when he's not chibi!america, cuz that might be a little weird), but it's not the focus of the story. I'll also be introducing one or two OCs eventually, but they will also not, I repeat NOT end up with either Arthur or Alfred, because I don't trust myself to not write a mary-sue if that did happen :).
> 
> Anyway, I'll stop talking now. Enjoy your chapter!

### Chapter Two

#### The Meeting

She had known from the instant she'd laid eyes on the boy that he would be her undoing. His pale skin and light hair were so unlike her own, and she had never seen anything like it, but she knew what it meant. The boy was like her, a symbol of the people, and soon she realized that her land would not be her's for much longer. That boy was the future, he was a representation of the future, one that did not involve her.

It was all there in his eyes. One day the pale people would come from over the sea and settle in her hills and valleys, driving her people away like unwanted children into smaller and smaller territories, starving them, leaving them in pain to pick up the pieces. But she would be gone long before that. The pale people would build vast camps that would stretch on for miles, with huts that would reach for the sky, turning it brown with belching smoke. They would chop down all of her forests and clog the rivers and kills the animals of her land. As much as she wished that all of this would never come to pass, it must have been true.

That boy had stars in his eyes.

But still, she loved him all the same. Even though his people would come to destroy her land, hurting or abandoning this child wouldn't change the future, nothing would. You simply couldn't change it. You played the part that fate assigned you and prayed that you would come out with some semblance of humanity left. No, it would be best to nurture the young boy while his mind was still new, and alien to the ways of the world. She would teach him all she knew about their kind, and help him along his way.

And so she cared for the boy. She showed him the beauty of her land, the green forests and the blue mountains, the orange deserts and the yellow plains with grass that blew in the wind like waves on the sea. And she taught him to respect the land and all of the creatures in it. And he would run through the prairie grass, laughing and smiling. He would look up at her with those star-filled eyes of his. And they scared her, those eyes. There was anger hidden in their blue depths.

"How long have you been here?" The boy asked one day as they lay in the prairie grass, his head in her lap. She paused to think. She had no way to keep track of the passing years except by the changing seasons and the endless cycles of the sun and moon.

"A long time", she said simply, and it was true. She had been here since the earth had been cold and hard, and she was alone in her land. It had been a lonely existence, just her and the cold. But soon, big, woolly animals began crossing over to her land from the great ice bridge, which had since sunken into the sea. These animals were being chased by people. And she had been so glad to see the people come, _her_ people now, trekking through the cold and wind to see her land.

She had been young then, naïve, and had not yet witnessed the war and bloodshed that seemed to follow man wherever he ventured on this earth. So she was happy. And throughout the millennia she watched as the earth thawed and her people spread from the snow to the desert, the hills to the valleys. She smiled.

Then, her people began to fight each other. They stabbed their own people with spears and rained arrows down on their fellow man, which pierced their flesh and left them in agony. And it hurt, and hurt more than anything in the world to see her people die all around her. Every arrow pierced _her_ flesh, every spear stabbed _her_ gut. They left marks on her skin, so many marks. And she could vividly remember how she had acquired each and every one. She couldn't understand why they had to hurt each other, hurt _her_ , so much.

"Why?" She would ask them, tears streaming down her face, blood dribbling from her mouth. "Why must you kill your own people? Can't you see that you are destroying yourselves?"

And they would always reply the same way: "They are not our people.

"They are from one tribe and we are from another.

"They have hurt us, so we must hurt them back".

But she knew, deep down in the innermost reaches of her soul, if she even had one anymore, that it was not true. They were all one people. It hurt just as much regardless of which tribe was hurting who. They should have been fighting together, as one people. And it tore her up inside, till she was sure that her heart lay in tatters in her chest.

After a millennia of witnessing the endless stream of fighting and war that plagued her people, she had learned to live with the pain, learned to withstand the terror she felt every time one of her people died with a stick through her gut, every time one of her people writhed on the ground in agony, praying for his death. But the pain never left.

She feared for the boy. He would soon enter a world of hardship and pain, one that would take this peaceful, happy little boy, and turn him into a monster. She had seen it happen with so many, all of the symbols of the people. The great empires of the south, the fur-wearing people of the north, her sisters had succumbed to the pain one by one. She herself had lost her humanity so long ago. And this pain would never end, never vanish. She couldn't die, no matter how hard she had tried. The boy loved to finger the thin white line that crossed the front of her neck.

She wanted to protect the boy from this world of hers that he would surely one day experience just as vividly as she did. She wanted to destroy the boats, stop the pale people from coming over the sea altogether. But there was only so much she could do. Symbol or not, she was only one person. One person could never change fate single-handedly. And she was fading.

It had started slowly. She had looked into a pond and saw her reflection indistinct, fading, though the water was calm and clear. She had cut her foot on a rock, and it hadn't stopped bleeding for a day. She knew that very soon, her time would be up. And it made her smile. This land was no longer hers. Soon it would belong to the sweet, innocent young boy who smiled up at her as she kissed his sun-kissed head. She hoped that he could carry the burden.

They sat in a clearing in the forest, the wind blowing through her long, raven hair, making the branches of the trees wave and shutter. Her strength was fading. She knew that she would never get up again. She held the boy close to her for the last time, rubbed his back. His breath stuttered in and out, jagged. His tears felt warm as they landed on her skin. She smiled at him, tried to look brave as she feebly attempted to push that stubborn piece of hair down onto his head.

"It's time to say goodbye", she whispered to him, trying to etch every detail of his face into her mind, though she knew that soon, even that would be gone.

"But why?" He stared up at her with those unfathomable, starry eyes.

"Because my time is done now. Soon, this land and everything in it will be yours".

"I don't want to leave you!" He burrowed into her, clinging tightly to her tunic of deer skin.

With great effort, she pulled him away from her, sat him down on the ground in front of her. Her heart ached as he sobbed. So she did the one thing that she could think of to comfort him: She reached up to grab the long, majestic eagle feather that perched in her hair, and placed it in his hand. He stared at it in awe, the most precious thing he had ever received. "Keep this, and whenever you feel sad, or alone, you can look at it and remember me".

He burst into fresh tears, hard. He sobbed, the droplets of water streaming down his ruddy cheeks in great rivers. "I love you", he cried out.

"I love you too", she said, hugging him for one last time. She saw her hand then, just a faint shimmer in the air now. She would be gone any minute.

"Listen", she said urgently. There were so many things she needed to tell him yet, and so little time to do it, "Go to the pale peoples' camp. Tell them your name. Someone there will know what to do. You understand?" She could only hope and pray that this young soul would meet someone who could help him understand all of the things that she could not teach him.

He nodded, sniffing up the tears, trying to be brave. "Good", she said, little more than a shadow against the trees now. She felt the world fading, the wind about to carry her away into a final, eternal peace. "Remember", she said softly, brushing one last tear from his cheek. "I will always love you. My little America".

With those last words, she ceased to exist. She was carried away on the breeze, and Native America disappeared from this world forever, never to return. The little boy stared at the spot where she had just a minute ago sat for a long time, trying to process that now he was alone. He stood up, trying to hold back the endless stream of tears.

The boy with stars in his eyes ran from his peaceful, child-like world, and into his future.

* * *

The trek to Philadelphia took the better part of the day from Boston Harbor. It had been hard riding on horse-back, mostly because the path through the largely forested land was small and indistinct, and was covered with rocks and roots that threatened to trip up Arthur's horse at every given opportunity. But also because Arthur realized that he hadn't actually ridden a horse in a long time, and found his equestrian skills to be a bit rusty. But eventually, after hours of clenching with his thighs onto a huge animal's back, sore, tired as he was, Arthur made it to the settlement in the late afternoon.

At the moment, Philadelphia didn't seem quite as grand as Arthur had been led to believe. It wasn't much of a city, really, more like a small community, with a few log houses and businesses perched around a dirt clearing. It did seem, however, that construction was always happening here. At the time Arthur arrived there had been three different buildings going up simultaneously, and the sounds of pounding hammers could be heard through the clearing at all hours of the day, so maybe soon, this place _would_ become a city.

Charles had kept his word: there was an empty house set aside for his arrival. It was a quaint little cabin, made of exposed wood logs which made up the entirety of the structure—walls, floors, ceiling, you name it, it was wood logs. Arthur couldn't really complain, though, as this dwelling was _much_ nicer than a majority of the other homes in the settlement. For one thing, it did actually _have_ floors, and not just compressed dirt. And for another, it had more than one room. Most families got by with just one room for eating, sleeping, and being in, but Arthur's had three rooms. The first was a cheery little front room with a wooden table and several windows. There were two doors off of this room that led back into a bedroom and a kitchen respectively.

It was there in the front room, at the table, that Arthur sat now, letting the warm afternoon breeze blow into his face through the open window. The easy part of his mission was done now, and as he sat there, Arthur realized that he had absolutely no idea where to go from here. It was true that you could put him in a room with a group of people and he would have been able to tell you which one was the Nation almost immediately, but he by no means had a "Nation Compass", as the King seemed convinced he did. He simply couldn't find a Nation with the whole of the New World as his parameters. And it wasn't like the Nation would be actively seeking him out, either.

He realized that he'd been muttering "Bloody impossible" to himself again. But it was true. The New World was a positively huge place. He could be here for years and catch neither hide nor hair of the Nation. It was bloody impossible.

_Bloody impossible_.

In fact, even the proposition was so outrageous that Arthur almost packed up right there to head back to England. He knew for a fact that no such Nation could possibly exist here. It was only a bloody colony, after all, and was simply a little spot of light in the great dark wilderness that surrounded it. Arthur could have searched for a thousand years, a _million_ even, and never would have come even close to finding—

"But I _am_ America! Give me back my feather! That's not cool, dude!"

The sounds of vaguely irate children's voice floated in through the window, followed by a bevy of malicious laughter. Arthur turned his head towards the noise. Had he heard what he'd just _thought_ he had? Did that shrill voice just proclaim that it "was America", or had the warm day caused Arthur to start hallucinating?

"You're lying", said one voice.

"You can't be America", said another, a girl by the sound of it, "America's not a person, it's a place".

"I'm going to hold onto this pretty feather until you tell the truth", said a third, the loudest.

"But I _am_ telling the truth", the very first again, "I'm America".

Now Arthur knew that he couldn't have been hearing things. That had happened, he'd distinctly heard a little voice shout that he was in fact, a country. The kid was lucky he was young. If Arthur went around proclaiming that he was the anthropomorphic personification of the island of Great Britain, he'd be tossed in the Loony bin faster than he could say "God save the King"!

Arthur thumped across the floor of the cabin, and opened the door. There, only a short distance away from his house, in the center of the clearing, were four children. Two boys and a girl stood around a third, slightly smaller boy. The biggest of them, a beefy kid with matted brown hair, held the largest feather that Arthur had ever seen above his head while the boy in the middle tried desperately to get it back. As he jumped up and down, the strand of flax blonde hair that popped up from his head at an odd angle bounced with him. The other two children blocked Cowlick boy in, and laughed all the while at his suspense.

"Give it back!" Cowlick boy shouted through gritted teeth. The bigger boy just laughed and didn't pay heed to the boy's begging. He shifted the feather from hand to hand, holding it tantalizingly close to Cowlick boy's face before yanking it into the sky again and out of reach.

And then it happened: A look came into Cowlick boy's eyes that terrified Arthur. It seemed to scare the other children too, who stopped. He looked angry, unnaturally so for a child so young, and the other kids started backing away. " _Give it back_ ", Cowlick boy repeated, quieter now. But the bigger boy was unfazed. He was either very confident, or very, very stupid. Arthur secretly thought the latter was far more likely.

"Make me", he smirked down at the smaller boy. Cowlick boy's eyes narrowed into slits, and burned into him. The challenge wouldn't go unanswered. He grabbed his arm, the one busy holding the long feather over his head, and pulled, bringing it back down to the bigger boy's side with a sickening crunch. The feather fell to the ground, and Cowlick boy snatched it up, brushing the dirt off with reverence. All four children then stood in silence for a moment, until the bigger boy began to tear up and balled, falling to the ground and clutching his surely broken arm.

"I...I'm sorry. I didn't mean—", Cowlick boy sputtered, fearful of repercussion. But the bigger boy wasn't going to be retaliating anytime soon. His howls of pain echoed through the settlement, though, and was starting to draw attention from the adults around. The other two children looked at each other, and quickly fled the scene. Cowlick boy shivered and looked this way and that, unsure of what to do.

The light went off in Arthur's head. This boy was _indeed_ a Nation. There was otherwise no conceivable way he could have broken the bigger boy's arm by brute strength alone. Arthur had never heard of a Nation being _that_ strong, but most of them did have certain...quirks. Austria could play absolutely any piece of music you put in front of him, regardless of instrument or style, and as much as he hated to admit it, France had been called the most aesthetically pleasing creature on the planet on multiple occasions, so it wasn't extremely unusual.

But now, the various colonists were beginning to have their attention drawn to this impossible crime. If they looked too closely, there would be questions, which would not do anyone good. Arthur would have to make his move, and quickly.

"Oi, you!" He called to the boys, and Cowlick boy looked up in fear, blue eyes wide. Arthur began to jog over to the pair, gaze fixed on the guilty one. He prayed that Cowlick boy wouldn't get scared and dash. _Just stay where you are,_ he pleaded silently. "You're in big trouble, young man", he said loudly, trying to look in charge of the situation.

"I-I", Cowlick boy stuttered, surely confused. Had this stranger mistaken him for someone else? A child or younger brother? He shuffled back and forth on his feet, not sure what to do or where to go. He looked about ready to run, but Arthur was quicker. Grabbing his shoulder, he leaned down next to Cowlick boy's ear.

"In about five seconds, those adults are going to start asking questions that neither of us can answer without being shipped off to the loony bin", he whispered. "So I'm going to get you out of here, but you have to play along".

Cowlick boy nodded, almost imperceptibly, and Arthur stood, still clutching onto his shoulder. "Come on", he shouted, to make sure that everyone around could hear him, "We're going to have some words". Arthur moved his hand to behind the boy's back, and began guiding him towards the woods. He looked over his shoulder, and saw that the bigger boy had limped off somewhere, hopefully to get help.

"Aw, come on, big Brother, it was just a game", Cowlick boy protested, putting on a surprisingly good pout. But he willingly allowed Arthur to steer him away from the scene and into safety.

"I'll not hear another word about it", said Arthur as they moved into the dark of the forest.

They walked through the dense greenery for a minute, not saying a word to each other, until Arthur was certain that they were a good distance away from the settlement. He let out the breath he'd just realized he was holding and relaxed. "That was close".

Cowlick boy stared up at him for a moment appraisingly, as if confused by his strange behavior, and Arthur waited patiently, certain that in just a moment, he would come to the correct conclusion. The boy might have only looked eight, but really, he could have been any age at all. Aging was strange for Nations, and didn't occur steadily. Even Arthur, who'd been around for a bloody long time, didn't really understand it. If he was honest, he really didn't know a lot about anything. Although most Nations tended to look like adults by the time they were two hundred, the boy could have very well been older than Arthur himself.

It dawned on Cowlick boy then, whose mouth widened into an 'o'. "You're like me!" he exclaimed, pointing a small finger at Arthur.

Arthur chuckled. "Not much subtlety about you, is there?" He kneeled down, so as to be eye level with the boy. "But if you mean a Nation, then yes, I am 'like you'".

"A Nation?" The boy asked, testing the word as if he'd never heard it before. Arthur realized with a jolt that he probably never had. This was a wild and untamed land, with no signs of civilization as far as he could tell, he never been exposed to such a concept. The boy had a lot to learn.

"Yes. I represent a country from across the sea. They call me Britain".

"I'm America", the boy smiled brightly. He seemed to get it. But after a second, his perpetual grin faltered. "But what's a country?"

Arthur thought for a second, trying to think of a possible way to describe the idea. It was one of those intangible things that was difficult to explain to someone when they'd never heard of the concept. How could he phrase it? "It's like", he began, "A huge group of people to work together to help each other out", he finished lamely, not sure if the explanation was sufficient.

"Oh! Like a tribe?" The boy asked. Arthur realized that he was going to be here for awhile, and sat down on the soft forest ground. Cowlick boy followed suit, plopping down hard. The eagle feather that he'd since stuck in his hair followed suit, flopping limply as he sat.

"Kind of", Arthur said, "But much bigger, like a bunch of tribes working together".

Cowlick boy bit his lip, but he nodded, seeming to understand. His eyebrows knitted together. "Am _I_ a country?"

Oh goodness, Arthur had known the boy for approximately twenty minutes and they were already getting to the subject that he'd hoped to avoid at all costs. He needed to tread very carefully here. "Not exactly", he said. "You're a colony. Several of them, actually".

"A colony?"

This was going to be a long bloody day. "Yes", said Arthur, trying not to sound testy. The boy was most certainly fond of asking questions. "Technically, the colonies are part of _my_ country", he tried to explain, "But you're very far away from me; All of the way across the ocean. So you get to look after yourselves".

Cowlick boy tilted his head. "So does that make you my Brother?" He asked.

Arthur paused. He didn't really know how to feel about the word "Brother". Most of his actual brothers (Scotland, Ireland, and Wales) had just ignored him most of his life, so he'd never really had a _real_ brother, unless you counted Francais and Antonio, but he hated the former's guts, and was also not on the best of terms with the latter, especially since he'd tried to invade Britain with his enormous Spanish Armada, which had luckily been stopped by Arthur's beloved English Channel.

But as he looked down at this small Nation who had such an innocent look in his eyes, Arthur became conscious of the fact that for some reason, he wanted to protect this young, inexperienced boy. He _did_ want to be his Brother.

"Yes", he said, smiling, "I guess that does make me your Big Brother, then".

"Yay!" Exclaimed the smaller Nation, jumping up and down in excitement.

"Alright then", said Arthur, reclaiming his attention instantly. The sudden silence shocked Arthur for a second, who was not used to having people listen to him so readily. "First order of business then: I assume you don't have a name".

The boy looked confused. "I already told you: it's America".

"No, no", said Arthur, "I mean a _human_ name".

The little boy stared up at him, waiting silently for an explanation.

"Most people don't know about Nations", he began, "And it would probably be for the best if it stayed that way. So you need a normal name to introduce yourself with".

This was the official reason for the Nations to have names. It wasn't really a rule per-say, but it was what they told people when they were asked about it. Over the millennia, for one reason or another, almost all of the Nations had taken one. For some, it was to honor a fallen comrade, or to fit into human society, but for most, it was really because deep down, they wanted to convince themselves that they were still human, _could_ still be human. It was something they could cling to when the world was falling down around them. When there was nothing left, they still had their names.

"I don't have one of those", said the boy, despondent. Arthur patted him on the shoulder, hoping that the gesture was comforting.

"It's okay", he smiled, "We'll just choose one for you". Cowlick boy brightened up immediately.

"What's _your_ name?" He asked.

"Arthur Kirkland".

"Can _I_ be Arthur Kirkland too?" Cowlick boy asked, eyes wide in anticipation.

Arthur laughed. "Goodness no. Then people would get us confused. You need a name that all your own, one that's unique".

"Hmm..." The boy thought for a minute, nose scrunched in concentration. Arthur supposed that he _was_ asking a lot of him. To choose a name that you would be using for several lifetimes on the spot would have been nerve-wracking. Arthur decided to help him out.

"How about...William?" He offered.

"No", the boy shook his head.

"James?"

"No".

"Charles?"

"No".

"Fergus?"

The boy laughed. "No way!"

"Hmm..." Arthur hesitated. "How about Alfred?"

The boy looked about ready to reject that name too, but then he stopped, thought about it for a second. "Alfred", he tasted the name on his tongue. "Alfred", Arthur waited patiently. "I like it", the boy smiled.

"It's a fine name", Arthur agreed. "Now, you need a surname, so we can tell you apart from all of the other Alfreds in the world", he answered the question preemptively. Alfred sat at attention, enthralled with the idea of receiving a name. "How about Jones?" Arthur offered. The name was Welsh, but he doubted that his brother would mind if he maybe … borrowed it.

"Alfred Jones", said Alfred trying it out. "My name is Alfred Jones", he mock introduced himself to the thin air in front of him.

Arthur chuckled. "It fits you perfectly". He looked upwards then, and saw that it was getting quite dark, the sun was already behind the tall trees, which cast long shadows onto the undergrowth. It would be time to head back soon. He had no idea what sorts of strange creatures might lurk in the forest after dark.

"Do you have a place to stay?" He asked Alfred. The boy's gormless smile dropped from his face, and his eyes clouded over.

The quickness of the change shocked Arthur. What had he said? "I used to live with my Big Sister", Alfred began, "But she … she disappeared". He didn't cry, just looked despairingly downward. Maybe he had run out of tears.

"Hey", Arthur said, and Alfred promptly glomphed him into a hug. Arthur let out a small "oof". The boy was certainly strong. "Why don't you come stay with me?" He asked after getting his breath back.

Alfred pulled away, and looked up at Arthur, hope oozing its way out of his every pore. "Really? You'd let me do that?"

"Sure", said Arthur, "What are Big Brothers for? Follow me and I'll show you the place".

He took the boy's small hand in his own and together they walked off through the forest back to Philadelphia as new-found brothers. Behind them, the sun set below the trees, spreading red and gold into an ever-darkening sky.

* * *

They walked through the forest leisurely, taking their time in getting back to the settlement. If Arthur had thought that he'd asked a lot of questions before, it was nothing compared to the sheer amount of inquiry the child made on their walk. He was incredibly inquisitive, and unfortunately not very well educated in the ways of the civilized world. But he certainly seemed eager to learn. Hopefully that could work to Arthur's advantage.

It was dark by the time they reached the settlement, and all was silent, save for the chirpings of crickets hidden in the brush. A few kerosene lamp lights shown in the windows of the log houses, but overall, it seemed as if most of the colonists had turned in earlier. They had taken longer than they'd meant to get back.

Arthur had a little trouble finding his house in the dark, he himself only having been there once before, but they eventually came upon it, and Arthur fumbled with the door handle a bit—it stuck—and stumbled inside. While he busied himself with finding some candles and matches, Arthur didn't notice that Alfred stood just outside the doorway, staring with trepidation into the interior of the house. After a few moments, Arthur found a lamp and set it on the table.

It was then that he looked up and saw just how scared the child looked. His wide eyes almost glowing in the dark. What scared the boy so much? Had he never been in a real house before? If what the young Nation said was true, that he'd been roughing it in the woods like a savage for as long as he could remember, then maybe he hadn't been.

"What's wrong?" Arthur asked

Alfred jumped a little, hair-trigger alert. "I..." He started, playing with his deer-skinned tunic nervously (Arthur made a note to get him some _actual_ clothes as soon as he could). He seemed embarrassed, but continued. "It's just … I can't see the sky".

The sky? Arthur didn't see what was so important about _that_. Seeing the sky above you when you were sleeping, or eating, or much of anything, for that matter, meant that you were viable to be bombarded by insects or any number of strange things while you were trying to get something done, and you would do best to head inside immediately. But as he thought about it, Arthur imagined that if _he'd_ lived outdoors for a vast majority of his life, all of those things probably wouldn't be quite as annoying to him. In fact, it might seem perfectly normal. If the sky had been the one permanent fixture in an ever-changing landscape, he'd be a little scared of suddenly not being able to see it too.

A large yawn passed Alfred's lips then, despite himself, and Arthur sighed. He could have very easily insisted that the boy come inside, could have been cruel, but it was late and Arthur was tired, and he really didn't have the energy to be cruel anyway, so he might as well just give the boy what he wanted, if only for this one night.

So he grabbed a quilt and a few feather pillows from the bedroom. "Alright. We'll sleep outside, then". Alfred's face brightened immediately. And Arthur's heart simply melted, the boy simply did something to him, and he didn't exactly know what it was. Was this that thing that people had described to him as "familial affection"?

"But only for one night", he said, unable to give completely into the young boy's desires. Alfred nodded solemnly, but he seemed genuinely relieved.

There was a small hill behind the house, oddly bare of trees or vegetation of any kind, really, unless you counted the course grass underfoot, and Alfred began to climb it before Arthur could say otherwise. Arthur followed behind, trying his darnedest not to grumble, and searched around until he found a relatively flat spot to lay the quilt on.

He spread the quilt on the ground, and flopped the pillows onto of those. Then he laid down, and Alfred quickly nestled into his side, his head on Arthur's chest. Arthur laid there for a while, listening to the boy's even breathing. Was it just him, or did the stars shine brighter over here in the New World than in England? They floated there above him, suspended in the sky with invisible strings.

Arthur had always liked the stars. Even though he knew that they really wouldn't be there forever, it surely seemed that way. No matter how long he lived, how many lives he'd taken, how many regrets he had, he could always look up at the sky and marvel at one of the only things in the world that was older than he was. They always sat there, looking exactly the same as they had the previous night. He had to admire their consistency.

"Brother?" Alfred asked timidly, and Arthur looked down to see his luminous blue eyes staring up at him. For a moment, Arthur could have sworn that he saw the stars reflected there, but mentally shook himself. It was just his tired mind playing tricks on him.

"Yes", he replied, gazing down at the strange creature that had somehow managed to make him smile so readily. Again.

Alfred stared tentatively up at him, looking small against the vast canvas of the sky that wheeled above them. "Can you tell me a story?"

A story? Sure, Arthur had plenty of stories. You didn't live to be upwards of a thousand years and not collect some tales. "Alright", he said, and Alfred promptly snuggled closer, looking excited. Arthur paused. What tale would be the best? One of pirates and treasure? Exploration? Knights and Kings? Ah, he had it. He'd tell him the oldest story of all.

"Once upon a time", Arthur began, grinning slightly as he began to relive the past exploits of a certain group of knights who happened to sit around a round table. "Once upon a time", he repeated for effect, "There lived a young boy named Wort. And he was—"

A soft, peaceful snore interrupted him mid-sentence. He looked down to find that Alfred was already asleep, snuggled against him on the quilt. Arthur sighed. He'd have to finish some other time. He smoothed Alfred's hair, his cowlick popping stubbornly back into place. Little bugger. Alfred mumbled a little, but didn't wake.

Part of Arthur couldn't believe that this child could even exist, that he could be here right now and actually seemed to _like_ Arthur, to look up to him. No one had _ever_ looked up to him before. He was filled with the feeling that he had to protect this little guy, had to make sure that Francais would never get his grubby paws on him. Because he didn't know how, but Arthur just _knew_ that someday, this little Nation would be great...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, hopefully I'll see you guys around the same time next week! Bye bye!


	3. The Few Short Years

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well! Still on time. I think this is a record. Anyway, figured I should mention this now:
> 
> WARNING: History, as a whole, is very religious. If I'm going to be truthful and honest in my writing about it, there's going to be some religion involved. I myself, however, am not a religious person, and so because I can only write what I know, my characters may tend to take a somewhat atheistic point of view. Do keep in mind that I'm not trying to offend you or your religion in any way, it's just how I roll.
> 
> Okay! With that boring seriousness out of the way, enjoy the chapter. It may be all cute and fluffy now, but I have plans. EVIL PLANS! MUHAHAHAHAHA

### Chapter Three

#### The Few Short Years

At first, Arthur thought that maybe he'd dreamed the whole thing. It just seemed far too easy. He hadn't even imagined that the Nation could have existed, let alone that he'd be able to find it, and suddenly, Alfred had appeared as if by magic—or a puff of smoke, whatever suited his fancy. It was all frankly too good to be true, and as these things usually were, probably imaginary. Well, it was a nice dream while it lasted, but now it was time to face reality, because something like that could never, _ever_ happen in the real world.

Except by then he was awake enough to be aware of the rock that was currently busy burrowing its way into the small of his back. Arthur didn't think the bed was _that_ hard. And now he felt the sun shining fiercely behind his closed eyelids. Oh, that's right, he'd fallen asleep outside last night because Alfred had been too scared to sleep indoors.

Wait. Wasn't that all part of his dream, though? That hadn't really happened. It was certainly a vivid dream, but it didn't happen. But then the small weight under his arm shifted, and let out a small grunt. Arthur opened his eyes. He was lying on the hill outside his house, the sun rising over the trees of the endless forests that surrounded the settlement. Tendrils of orange and pink reached towards the sky as if embracing it. Alfred's head laid on Arthur's chest, and rose and fell slowly with his breathing.

Arthur couldn't believe his luck. It _hadn't_ been a dream. It was really real. He'd found the bloody Nation! In one day! That must have been a world record. With a jolt, he realized that his mission was complete. He could go home now. Arthur was about ready to jump for joy and start packing when Alfred snorted a little, and attempted to wrap his small arm around Arthur's middle. It was at that moment that he realized that he simply couldn't leave the child to fend for himself.

If he'd wanted to, he'd could have been a heartless bastard and left Alfred alone, by himself here in this huge, unexplored land. It's probably what France or Spain would have done, but he realized then that that would be a horrible, simply rotten thing to do to a child. _Any_ child. This child in particular was so young to be so alone in this big world that he frankly really didn't understand.

It reminded Arthur of another young boy. It must have been many centuries by now, but that little boy hadn't had anyone to look after him. _His_ older brothers just tried to invade his land and make him cry. France and Spain and all of the others _had_ made Arthur cry, had brought him down to the lowest of lows for their own personal gain. Look how _he_ turned out. Arthur had done a lot of things in the past that he sincerely regretted, all in the name of so-called revenge, to get back at his brothers for ruining his childhood.

He didn't want to see that happen to anyone, ever again. If he was going to be this child's big brother, then by Jove, he was going to _be_ his big brother. The world was large and confusing, and Alfred had his head stuck in the Stone Age. Arthur would simply have to teach him the ways of the modern world, because, really, who else was going to? If he was honest, Arthur hadn't been exposed to many healthy familial relationships, but he would most certainly try.

Alfred stirred then, yawned. He looked around seemingly as confused as Arthur had been just a moment ago, until he realized where he was. "Good morning", Arthur grinned, though he didn't know why. The child seemed to somehow bring it out of him. Alfred looked up at him, then smiled back, before yawning again.

The boy sat up, rubbing his eyes with a pudgy little fist. "Morning". Arthur sat up too, running a hand through his disheveled blonde hair. The blanket was damp with dew from the rapidly warming day, and Arthur set about the task of folding it up without getting too wet while Alfred stood to the side, blinking against the bright sunlight, his toes becoming cold from the wet grass. Arthur made another note to get the poor boy some shoes. Alfred reached for the pillows as Arthur grabbed the blanket under his arm.

Arthur held out his free hand, and Alfred took it. "Ready to try going inside?" He asked. The boy paused, clearly scared, but then nodded hesitantly. Arthur squeezed his hand in what he hoped was a comforting gesture. "Come on, then", he said, "let's go eat some breakfast".

They walked down the hill, and around the side of the wooden house. The settlement was still subdued, quiet, with only a few people up to begin doing the day's work. Arthur opened the front door. The interior of the front room was bright and sunny, hopefully less terrifying than the dark of the previous night. "You ready?" He asked, and Alfred nodded, determined now.

He took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and after a moment, put one foot through the doorway. It made a light clunk on the wood floor. He paused again, almost lost his nerve, but then the other foot went through. He waited, as if making sure that the house wouldn't gobble him up. After another moment, nothing happened, and he let go of Arthur's hand and took a step inside. Then another. Clunk clunk clunk. He opened his eyes then, and turned back to Arthur, smiling. "This floor feels funny".

Laughing, Arthur followed him inside. The boy took a few more steps, then began to run around the small front room, enjoying the sound that his bare feet made against the dark wood of the floor. Arthur watched, bemused at this child who had never been in a house before.

Alfred pattered around the room for a few minutes, but then stopped. His stomach made an audible growling noise. "Why don't we go make some breakfast?" Arthur suggested.

He led the way into the small kitchen towards the back of the house. A fireplace sat wedged in the corner, and most of the other space was occupied by counters and various utensils, which hung from the walls on hooks. Arthur _did_ like cooking, although Francis would often call what he made "Eldritch Horrors from the farthest reaches of the cosmos come to devour us all", with his annoying, over the top accent. But what could Arthur say? He loved to experiment. And sometimes those experiments just didn't come out quite right.

Eyes widening, Alfred looked around in awe. Most likely, there were a huge variety of things in here that his primitive upbringing would have never allowed him to see. "What's that?" He asked, pointing at a ladle.

Arthur told him as much. "It's for scooping things up, like soup", he explained after Alfred parroted the answer back to him. They repeated the process several times with a strainer, a grinder, and a tenderizer respectively, until Arthur lost patience. He put a finger to the boy's mouth and said "Shh. Watch and learn".

The boy still managed to keep a running dialog as Arthur got busy making something that he could only pray might eventually turn out to be edible. He talked about anything and everything, and seemed to only need the occasional nod from Arthur to just keep right on going. "I think the ocean's pretty, and-and-and there are these _huge_ boats that float on top of it sometimes, like big ducks!" He laughed. "It's crazy, man! Sometimes, I wish that _I_ could be one of those boats, you know?" Nod. "Oh, but you've been on one before, haven't you?" Nod. "'Cause you said that Britain's across the ocean, right?" Nod. "What's Britain like?"

Arthur had just finished placing a tray of what he hoped would be scones over the fire. He turned to find Alfred, and thought about it for a second. "It's actually an island", he began, "But it's a really _big_ one. It's got a very long and fascinating history and..." he stopped mid-sentence, thought a bit more. "You know what? Britain's bloody boring". Alfred started laughing. "No, really", he continued, "It's filled with shallow people who won't see past the ends of their own noses, while the poor live in these slums, basically buried knee-deep in their own shi—", he caught himself. Bad Arthur. No naughty words in front of children!

"That sounds really gross", said Alfred, scrunching up his nose. "Can I go and see it sometime?"

"Hmm", Arthur thought for a second, but his mind kept coming back to all of the nasty things that could happen to the poor child there: accosted on the street, lost in the slums, getting his cheek pinched by the Duchess of Lancaster. "Maybe when you're older", he concluded.

Just then, the smell of something burning reached his nose. The scones! He grabbed a cloth and tried to grab the tray from the fire. "Damn it!" he snapped, almost burning his hand against the hot metal. "Don't repeat that", he added to Alfred as he finally managed to somehow get ahold of the tray and place it on a counter without setting his own hand ablaze.

Alfred stared at the blackened, shriveled lumps on the tray, which were _supposed_ to be scones. He reached a small hand to grab one. "Ah-ah-ah", said Arthur, and Alfred swiftly pulled the offending appendage out of the way. "Careful. Those are hot".

After a few minutes, the would-be-scones were cool enough to attempt to eat. Arthur supposed he could have done the whole affair properly, with plates and utensils and things, but at this point, he really didn't care much. Alfred held the thing in his hands and after staring at it for a minute, took an enormous bite. Arthur waited with baited breath for the inevitable gagging that would soon ensue, but it never came.

"This is good!" Alfred exclaimed, taking another big bite.

"Really?" Sputtered Arthur, before he composed himself. "Of course they are". He grabbed one from the tray and attempted to pull off a tough chunk with his teeth. He had to chew on it for a good minute before he could get it down his throat. It was disgusting. The boy certainly had a strange sense of taste alright. But hey, if he liked his food, then maybe this would be easier than he thought...

* * *

And so they lived, there in that small house in Philadelphia, for a few joyful, albeit short, years. For the first time in possibly as long as he could remember, Arthur was actually kind of happy. Not just some artificial type of happiness that he told himself he had, but this feeling was real, _genuine_. Somehow, he wasn't Arthur Kirkland the Conqueror or Arthur Kirkland, the Anthropomorphic Personification of Britain. He was just simply Arthur Kirkland. He finally understood what Charlie had meant when he said to just be himself. And if he was honest, that was all he really wanted to be at the moment.

The boy somehow brought him that sense of peace that had seemed to evade him for so long. Perhaps it was that Arthur didn't feel so alone anymore. It was true that he'd never _truly_ been alone, there were other Nations he could have talked to, but the ones he was friendly with were just so far away, and it seemed that he had alienated all of the others near him: France was never going to just sit down and talk to him, and Spain kept his distance ever since the whole armada thing. Arthur had been a little scary, then. He had scared himself.

But that was all in the past, now. He felt so whole here, so ... _human._ And he had Alfred with him to remind him of that humanity that he had only recently realized that he still possessed. And over the few years they had together they grew closer. And they were both able to teach each other things that they would have never learned otherwise. Arthur taught Alfred all of the typical things: reading, writing, arithmetic, and how to be a gentleman, and Alfred taught Arthur many things as well, like about all of the plants and animals of his land, and the beauty of the raw wilderness.

Sometimes, as is with anyone who lives in proximity to another person, they didn't get along. They'd fight and yell about one thing or another, but these arguments were always so trivial that later, neither would remember what they were even about in the first place. And really, what pair of siblings didn't fight on occasion? Even Arthur knew that. If he was honest, he knew it a little _too_ well.

And as they watched, the settlement of Philadelphia grew from a few wooden houses around a clearing to a decent-sized town. Some of the newer houses were even beginning to get made with bricks instead of simple wood. To Arthur's slight discomfort, it was starting to look a lot like Britain, and to Alfred's _great_ discomfort, the colonists were beginning to encroach on the forests, driving the animals far away.

Sometimes the young boy would wander far into the forests just to hear the noises of the animals that had long since fled the burgeoning city. Arthur let him alone then, when he got like that, and let him go. He knew these lands like the back of his hand, and always came back after a few hours.

They did have one big problem, however, that very quickly made itself apparent: Alfred didn't age. This certainly wasn't unusual for a Nation, who tended to age somewhat irregularly, but that wasn't the problem. The problem was the _colonists_. They of course, had no idea what Arthur and Alfred really were, and people tended to over-react when confronted with things they don't understand. Arthur had heard about Salem, and it scared him.

Most of the colonists were Quakers, who were generally pretty peaceful folk. They had made peace with the local natives, going so far as to _buy_ Pennsylvania from them, but even the most laid-back person would begin to suspect that something was amiss when they were confronted with a small boy who hadn't looked a day over eight for the last two and a half _years_.

This wasn't such a problem for Arthur, who looked old enough that his actual age could be left somewhat ambiguous, but in Alfred's case, it was highly suspicious when his peers grew up around him while he stayed the exact same age as the day they first saw him.

The more time that past, the less friendly the colonists became to the two of them. They stopped smiling when little Alfred waved, or pushed their children inside as he past. When the two of them walked around the town, people averted their eyes. One time, Arthur could have sworn that he'd seen a woman make the sign of the cross and mutter "Demon", when she saw them. It worried Alfred, who didn't quite understand the change in attitude that overcame the colonists.

They would have to move soon, there was no doubt about that. Maybe they'd go to Boston, it seemed like their best bet at anonymousness. But Alfred was reluctant to leave. His sister had disappeared here, after all, and part of him felt that he'd be leaving her behind by going.

"Hey", Arthur had said, "You've still got that eagle feather she gave you, right?" Alfred had nodded solemnly. ""So you're not _really_ leaving her behind. You've got a piece of her wherever you go". That talk seemed to allay the boy's fears somewhat, but Alfred was still somewhat hesitant. They finally agreed to wait one month and leave on the anniversary of the day they'd first met.

That had been the plan, but it seemed that plans that Arthur made never really went off as they were supposed to. The bugger of it all had happened a week before they were supposed to leave. Several of the carpenters building a new house had gotten sick, and the house, which was supposed to be completed in a week for the new family's arrival, was severely undermanned. Arthur _did_ know a thing or two about carpentry, it was another one of those things you didn't live a thousand years and _not_ learn, so he volunteered to help out. The carpenters had—somewhat reluctantly, Arthur noted—agreed.

So Arthur had helped out, and things seemed to have been going pretty well, when he'd had to climb up that ruddy ladder. It was rickety, and nowhere near stable, but this giant log had to be tied to the structure of the house, and Arthur was certainly not the tallest man around, so he'd climbed up the ladder.

Said implement had begun to tremble beneath him as he neared the top. The carpenters had warned him that he shouldn't climb to the very top rung, but that was ridiculous. Why had it been put there in the first place if you weren't supposed to climb it? And besides, Arthur still didn't have quite the height he needed. He tried to hold very still as he worked, to prevent the ladder from moving, but then his leg got sore, and without thinking, he shifted positions.

That was enough to make the ladder crumble, and Arthur held onto the log for a second, but that became unbalanced as well, and Arthur plummeted downward to the ground from a height of about ten feet. He would have been okay, if he'd not tried to hang onto the bloody log, which came down on top of his leg with a harsh crunch.

It was broken, no doubt about that. Unsurprisingly, Arthur really couldn't feel it. The whole leg was just sort of numb, with a sort of burning sensation that wasn't very pleasant. But give it ten minutes and it would be right as rain. That was, coincidentally, about the amount of time it took the carpenters to get organized enough to find the proper amount of man power it required to heave the log away from his leg.

The man in charge—was his name Silas? Arthur couldn't remember—had offered a hand and helped Arthur to his feet. He called someone over to support Arthur's weight as he took a look at the leg. It was broken all right, but a fairly easy diagnosis. The bone _was_ sticking out of his skin at a terribly unnatural angle.

"We'll get you to the doctor", he'd said in his gruff, low voice.

If they did that, then the leg would surely heal and the whole town would know that something was strange about Alfred and him. He tried to refuse the offer, to say that he would be alright with a little bed rest, but it was hard to take his pleas seriously when his own bone was jutting out of the _skin on his leg_.

Of course, just Arthur's luck, at the very moment he was making excuses was the moment that his leg decided to heal. The carpenters watched as, in front of their very eyes, the bone that had one second ago been out in the open moved back into Arthur's leg of its own accord, and the wound closed with nary a trace that it had ever been broken at all. The carpenters, and other colonists that had been drawn to the scene stared in shock.

Needless to say, they started packing right away.

* * *

News had a tendency to spread rapidly in the small town of Philadelphia, and word of the strange event that had recently occurred that very day spread even quicker. From mouth the ear, whispered through the unnaturally quiet streets, the colonists heard the word: There was a demon and its spawn in their midst. There was simply no other way to explain the impossible sight that they had witnessed. Furthermore, there was to be a meeting in the town hall that very night to discuss just what to do. There would be no official, nothing of the sort, just old-fashion men and women deciding how they would go about purging this threat from their community.

The colonists waited with trepidation, huddled in their homes, as the sun slowly set behind the trees, leaving the sky a hideous blood red. It was the demon's doing, must have been. It was angry, and if they didn't do something, its wrath would be unleashed on the innocent colonists. But as the full moon arose ominously in the sky, nothing happened.

So slowly, one by one, the colonists made their way to the meeting hall. They tried to stagger their arrivals so as to not alert the demon of the goings-on. Demons were cunning and clever, the colonists would have to tread carefully. They felt like prisoners in their own settlement.

They sat in the meeting house, figures in blankets huddled on the hard wooden benches, in silence, waiting impatiently for any stragglers. The air was so thick with tension that you could have cut it with a knife. Even the flames tip-toeing on their candles seemed to tremble with fear. Finally, Travis the blacksmith peeked his sun-tanned head through the heavy wooden doors, and entered, his wife and two daughters following behind like ducks. He closed and bolted the door behind him.

There was a moment of silence then; the colonists were reluctant to begin. Mother's clutched their children to them, begging them to be quiet as they sniffled back their tears. The men and boys fingered their guns, far too nervous to be safe. Demons could do terrible things to the good, God-fearing people of the town, and the colonists feared for their lives.

Then, sighing deeply, Silas Carmichael, the carpenter, and most respected man in Philadelphia, rose to his feet. He was a bear of a man, strong, with a grizzled, black mane on his head which was slowly, but surely, fading to gray. Rubbing a hand along the scruff on his chin, he began to speak. "Well, gentlemen, it looks like we have a demon in our midst".

This broke the spell, and the colonists erupted into chatter. "I saw it with my own eyes!" Said a thin, reedy man, "His leg healed all by itself! The bone just moved back into his leg; it's the work of the Devil!" Several shouts echoed his sentiment.

A woman with a baby in her arms spoke up "And his brother! The child never grows. He's the same age he was when he first arrived!"

"He _should_ be my age", said a girl with dark hair, about eleven or twelve, "We used to pick on him before he broke Bick's arm".

An outcry went out among the assembled colonists. "Mary!" Another twelve-year-old, a boy. "We promised that we'd never tell anybody!"

"I'm sorry!" The girl shouted back, "But I can't keep quiet anymore. I'm scared", she began to cry.

A plump woman turned to her son, a beefy boy with a vaguely stupid expression on his face. " _That's_ how you broke your arm? Why didn't you tell me?"

The boy shrugged, embarrassed, and mumbled something along the lines of "Didn't want to get in trouble". His cheeks turned –beet red as the assembled colonists stared at him.

Silas clapped his huge hands together, and regained the colonists' scattered attention. "Hey, hey! Yes, we've already decided that the two of them are no good. But now we need to figure out just what we're going to do about it".

"Everyone knows that there's only one thing to do about demons", said a farmer, pitchfork already in hand. He paused for dramatic effect as the colonists gaped at him. "Burn 'em"

A solemn silence fell in the meeting house as the colonists processed what they would very quickly have to do to the people that they'd known for several years. Some might have been thinking that they had seemed like such nice boys, while some of the others might have suspected their true natures all along. People are strange like that. But we may never know just what the colonists were thinking at that moment, because they will very quickly become irrelevant to the story at large.

Just then, the Minister's wife, a young woman with flowing blonde hair, stood up. She couldn't hold back and be a good wife anymore. "You're suggesting that we burn a child, _a child,_ alive?"

"That's ain't no child", the farmer replied, "It's that demon's spawn. He'll create more like him, you'll see. Snatch your children in the night. Replace them with changelings". He waved his hands around in sweeping gestures to illustrate his point. A little girl burst into tears.

But the Minister's wife stood strong. "Is that what the Good Book tells us?" She asked the crowd. "To burn innocent children alive because of something that we don't understand? God says to 'Love thy neighbor'. Is this what He would want?"

Another man, a second farmer, rose to his feet. "Them two be the servants of Satan! God would want us to purge them from His earth". A chorus of affirmation rose up behind him. The crowd rose to its feet, grabbing pitchforks and torches, shouting and hollering.

"This isn't right! He's just a child!" The Minister's wife screamed above the cacophony, but either the mob didn't hear her, or they didn't care to.

"We'll burn that house down while they sleep!" Yelled Travis the blacksmith, raising his fist into the air, and the mob followed him, shouting for blood. They ran to the doors of the meeting house and opened them, spewing out into the night like Bloodhounds after a scent.

Only the Minister's wife remained. She sobbed into her hands at the injustices of this world and the bloodlust of man. What place did she live in where people were so eager to destroy the things that they did not understand, even if that thing happened to be a child? It was simply barbaric.

She felt a hand on her shoulder, then, and looked up, eyes puffy, nose running down her face, to see Silas Carmichael staring back at her, sympathy in his eyes. "Those boys'll be alright. You'll see", he said gruffly.

"I know", she sputtered, "They can't die, after all. It's just that ... I can't believe how blind these people are. How their fear controls them".

"Think how scared they'd be if they knew what they _actually_ are". He paused, considering. "Maybe it's best if they _do_ think of them as demons".

She wiped her tears away on a white sleeve, tried to smile. But her face remained grim. "The boy is so young, though. No one should have to live through something like this at such and age. In an ideal world—"

"Well, we don't live in an ideal world, do we, Bessie?" He said, a little too harshly. He softened. "They'll be alright. I just hope they can run quickly"...


	4. The Farewell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again! This chapter's a little shorter, sorry about that. Also thanks everyone for putting up with the fluff, but it's needed background for the shit that is very quickly about to go down.
> 
> This chapter is not the best I've ever written. Guess I'm really ready to move into the next section, which will hopefully be a little more exciting! Anyway, just bear with it, and I promise that it will get better! Thanks everyone!

Chapter Four

The Farewell

Fire is a terribly tricky thing. One minute, you can be sitting in front of the telly without a care in the world, everything is just fine, no complaints, and then the next, someone will be sniffing the air and asking "Do you smell something burning?" And you'll all realize that the kitchen is on fire because someone left a pan on the stove. This is exactly what happened to Arthur and Alfred, except that in this case the pan was a mob of angry colonists, and they were not watching the telly because it wouldn't be invented for three-hundred and fifty years yet.

Arthur had a knapsack on the bed, and was currently shoving a seemingly random assortment of clothing into it. They had decided to use the cover of night to make their escape from the town, and he could only hope that they could leave quickly enough, before the colonists did something rash. He was trying to pack as quickly as he could, but he still couldn't seem to find his coat. Nights, even summer ones, were deadly cold here in America.

Ah, yes, he remembered now: he'd draped it over his chair in the front room. "Alfred", he instructed the boy, who was standing next to him, looking worried, "Go get my coat from the front room, will you?" Arthur was trying his best to appear calm, but Alfred knew that something was seriously wrong. He nodded, though, and pattered from the room to find the garment.

Arthur continued his furious packing. Shirts, shoes, what did they _really_ need? So focused was he on the task of getting them out of this very bad situation as quickly as he could that he almost didn't hear Alfred's call from the next room. "Arthur..." He said nervously.

"What is it?" Shouted Arthur, a little too sharply. You couldn't possibly blame him, though, especially not at a time like this.

"C'mere", said Alfred.

Sighing, Arthur abandoned the knapsack and strode into the front room. "Can't this wait?" He began. "I'm very bu—"

He stopped as he caught that distinctive smoky smell that stung his nose. Something was burning. And then he saw Alfred. The boy was simply pointing, at a loss for words, at the kitchen door. Arthur turned, and very swiftly realized that it was enveloped in flames. "Oh no", he mumbled. They were too late. The colonists _had_ done something rash; they were going to burn them alive.

There was a series of shouts from behind the front door, and running to the window, Arthur caught a glimpse of a practical horde of colonists with torches and pitchforks. They screamed for blood as they lit the front door on fire. "Come on!" He yelled, grabbing Alfred's hand and pulling him back towards the bedroom, which was the only room in the house currently _not_ on fire.

But Alfred resisted. What was wrong with him? Arthur pulled on his arm again, but the boy didn't budge. It was that damned unnatural strength of his. "Wait!" He screamed over the roar of the flames. "My feather! It's in the kitchen!".

"We'll have to leave it behind", Arthur yelled, pulling futilely one more time. Alfred's eyes widened, and began to fill with tears, although whether that was from pure feelings of remorse, or the thick, black smoke that was slowly enveloping the room in it's deathly embrace.

"No!" He said, beginning to ball. "It was my sister's!"

Oh for Christ's sake! They were going to be burned alive at this rate. Arthur had learned from experience that being covered in flames from head to toe while screaming in pain was not fun. At all. They wouldn't die from it, of course, but the pain would be so bad that they'd probably wish they were. He'd just have to go and get the damn thing.

"Go into the bedroom", he instructed, coughing. "I'll get it".

Alfred smiled and ran through the door to the bedroom. Arthur tore off a bit of his sleeve and placed it over his mouth, making a make-shift smoke-screen. This was going to hurt. A lot. But it was better than sitting there and doing nothing. He took a deep breath, steeled himself. Better do this quickly.

Kicking in the wooden door, Arthur realized that the kitchen was a mess of flames and destruction. The far wall had a large hole in it from where the hungry flames had eaten it, and the smoke was unbearable. Arthur started coughing, despite the smoke-screen, which was never going to be that effective with this must smoke anyway. But he had to find the feather. He ran into the room, hopping from foot to foot to avoid the fire as best as he could.

The feather was nowhere to be seen. Not on the counter, not on the mantle over the hearth, not _anywhere_. Arthur had started wheezing now. He wasn't going to last much longer. And his feet were burning in their leather boots. He tried to stamp out the flames, but the fire was absolutely everywhere now.

Then, as if by magic, a breeze flowed through the ever-increasing hole in the far wall. It was brief, and small, certainly not enough to put out the fire, but enough so that the feather, where ever it had been hiding, was able to catch onto the wind and blow high up into the air over Arthur's head, unharmed. He began laughing, giddy, as he reached up to catch it.

Prize in hand, he ran from the kitchen to find that the fire had spread to the whole of the front room, and had begun to move into the bedroom. Alfred was in there! He heard it then, over the roar and whoosh of the flames: Alfred was screaming. Arthur began to run across the burning room, only to be stopped when he heard a large cracking sound over his head, and one of the roof's big support beams came crashing down right in front of him. It was now little more than a burning mass of fire and pain.

"I'm coming Alfred!" He shouted, dancing from foot to foot as he tried to find a way around this new obstacle. But there were none. The beam stretched all of the way across the room, from wall to wall, every inch burning as ashes blew off of the top. Arthur was just going to have to go over it.

Sticking the feather in his shirt pocket and out of harm's way, Arthur braced himself, then ran at the beam. It was large, and he had to place his bare hands on the burning log in order to vault himself over; there was an audible sizzling noise and an over-whelming smell of cooking flesh as he did so.

But then he was over and hurdled head-first into the bedroom, and there was Alfred, covering his face in the corner of the room as the flames licked hungrily at him. The knapsack, still on the bed, was relatively unharmed, just a bit singed. Arthur quickly grabbed it, letting out a gasp of pain as his burnt hands touched the straps, and ran over to Alfred, bodily picking him up and flinging him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. The boy didn't resist, just coughed and whispered hoarsely: "Did you get it?"

"The feather? Yeah, I got it", said Arthur. He turned back to the front of the house, only to see that their only exit was blocked by an encroaching wall of flames. They were trapped. The heat of the flames and smoke burned his lungs as Arthur breathed it in, and the whole house glowed a sickly orange. He _had_ to get them out of here. He couldn’t watch this small child go through something as traumatic as being burned alive.

Arthur turned around in a circle, trying to find a viable exit, when his eyes came to rest on the big bay window overlooking the bedroom. Broken glass embedded in his skin did not sound like a good time to Arthur, but it was better than being consumed by fire, wasn't it?

"This might … sting a little", he shouted in between coughing fits. There was no response from the lump on his shoulder. Arthur backed up as far as he could, and bracing himself, ran head-first into the window.

It is often at this point in a story when the hero—or heroine, depending—will close his eyes and take a running leap of faith through the plate glass window in slow motion, signifying that the hero can no longer be controlled by the people that are inevitably oppressing him. But if a person were really to attempt something like that, they would most likely miss the window entirely and crash face-first into the wall. So Arthur did _not_ close his eyes. And confidentially, he wasn't the hero of this story anyway...

He didn't remember much after that. It all kind of melded into a blur of pain and confusion. He supposed later that he must have been able to get up and stagger a few paces into the forest before collapsing into a bleeding mess on the forest floor, or else the colonists would have found them.

The next thing he remembered, the sun was bleeding through his closed eyelids, and something was poking him. More specifically, something was poking his face. "Arthur?" When he didn't move, the thing began to shake him vigorously. "Arthur! Come on, dude. Wake up!" Arthur coughed a bit, clearing his lungs of the stale smoke that still sat in them, and groaned. Coughing hurt.

There was a gasp near his ear, and the shaking increased. "Brother!" Ow, ow, ow. Every moment sent stabs of pain up his body.

"Shtaaaap", he mumbled, and the shaking abruptly ceased. Arthur opened his eyes a crack, then closed them again as the harsh morning sun burned them. Alfred sat over him, primed and ready to start poking him again. He looked very worried. "I'm okay", Arthur croaked, hacking up a lung.

"Thank god!" Alfred exclaimed. "I was just about to have to give you the kiss of life!" Arthur tried to sit up, wheezing as he laughed, but fell back down again. He started to run a hand through his soot-covered hair, but then sucked in a breath and promptly stopped as the blistering skin on his palm made contact. Once again, Arthur sat up, and actually managed it this time.

And he was, of course, promptly glomphed by Alfred, who was almost able to knock him right back down again. "I was so scared!" He said, "I thought you weren't coming back!"

"I said I'd come back, didn’t I?" Asked Arthur. "A gentleman always keeps his word". Alfred released him from the bone-crushing hug, and sat back on his haunches. His face was covered in blotches, but other than that, the boy seemed relatively unharmed. "Oh!" Arthur remembered, reaching into his shirt pocket. "Your feather". Alfred smiled, delighted, and took it carefully, shaking the soot off with reverence. It was a miracle that it remained untouched by the fire.

"Thanks".

"They've got to be close by!" The two froze where they sat as several voices echoed through the forests. It was the colonists. They knew that they were not dead.

Alfred's eyes grew wide. "Shh", Arthur whispered, and motioned for Alfred to follow him in the opposite direction of the colonists. He could only hope that Boston was in this direction.

* * *

 

For three days they skulked through the wilderness, not saying a word and jumping at small noises. They were dirty, and exhausted, but still very much alive. The colonists continued to hunt them for the better part of the first day, but very quickly gave up. Either that or they'd actually left them far behind.

Alfred was visibly shaken. His eyes remained in a perpetual state of surprise, and the practical waterfall of words that were known for spilling out of his mouth of their own accord were oddly absent. The silence was unnerving for Arthur, who was by now so used to the constant chatter going on in the background that having it suddenly gone was unbalancing. He half expected the dialogue to recommence at any minute, and when they didn't, he grew worried.

"Are you alright?" He asked, as they worked their way over the uneven forest floor. Alfred nodded, but then jumped a foot in the air when he landed on a stick, which made a loud crack as it folded under his weight. The boy was most certainly not alright, but Arthur let it slide.

They stumbled along for a few hours, and were eventually able to head east when they came upon a clearing in the middle of the dense vegetation, and saw the sky overhead. Soon, their burns began to heal, and by the end of the day the blisters on Alfred's face had become nothing more than a sheen of pink on his cheeks. Arthur's hands were better as well, which made it less of a complete hell to try to carry the knapsack along, but they had been burned far worse than Alfred's cheeks, and began to peel, so that by nightfall the knapsack strap was covered in dry, flaked-off skin.

It got dark quickly, even more so under the cover of the trees. They walked for as long as they could, but Arthur's knees soon felt like they were about to give out underneath him, and Alfred's eyes had lost their usual shimmer. So they set up camp. Alfred, with his knowledge of the land, was able to scrounge up a few edible nuts and berries to eat, while Arthur set about lighting a fire. They would need the heat to last the cold night, because much to his dismay, in his hurry, Arthur had forgotten to pack blankets. So they spent the night shivering and listening to the howls of distant wolves.

At some point in the night, Alfred managed to fall into an uneasy sleep, snuggled next to Arthur. But Arthur himself slept very little. He was troubled by the rashness of the colonists. They were fighters, that much was certain, and passionate about what they believed in. After witnessing the fervor of America's people, Arthur wasn't exactly sure that these were good qualities for them to possess.

The second day was uneventful, mostly just a lot of walking through the humid woods. They _did_ find a stream at some point, almost choking in their effort to rehydrate after almost twenty-four hours without that essential substance. But mostly, they just walked on in silence.

On the third morning, however, they stumbled upon a road. This made walking quite a bit easier, and at this point, Arthur was sure that that was all he'd be doing for the rest of his miserably long life. A horse-pulled cart rumbled past them, filled with a heavy load of wheat, and the driver was able to point them in the right direction towards Boston. He was helpful, but eyed their burnt clothes and wary expressions suspiciously. He moved on quickly, and left them to go on their way.

Finally, they began to see small farms and other signs of civilization that could only mean they were closing in on the city. They saw people too. Men, women, old ladies, babies, so many people, probably more than Alfred had ever seen in one placed. He watched them all pass, and seemed to have a strange look of pride plastered on his face. But the people seemed to keep their distance from the two of them. Arthur couldn't blame them though; the two of them _did_ look like they'd just come through a war zone. None-the-less, Arthur didn't notice, because he was too busy thinking about how nice a bath would be right now.

Boston was big. Not London big, of course, London claimed almost half a million people in it's citizenry, but for the New World, Boston was positively massive. As they walked into the city proper, Arthur watched as Alfred's eyes grew to the size of saucers. He seemed to momentarily break out of his shell-shock as he let out an awed little "woah", and turned his head this way and that, rather like an owl, as he tried to look at the whole city all at once. He had never been in a city this huge before.

They walked along the side of the cobblestone street, watching the carts and horse-drawn carriages rumble down the road. People were everywhere, building things, haggling over goods, it seemed as if everyone was in some kind of hurry. Arthur took Alfred's hand, for fear that the child would run off, and he'd lose him in the cacophony. And soon, the hustle and bustle and controlled chaos of the whole city broke the boy's silence. He began to talk again, talking a mile a minute. "What's that? What are they doing? Who's _that_ guy? He looks important".

And Arthur tried to answer his many questions as best as he could while simultaneously attempting to find them a place to stay for the night, an inn or the like; one that was preferably _not_ shady. It took a while because Arthur was wholly unfamiliar with the city and he was bloody exhausted. But just as it was beginning to get dark, and Alfred started to shiver, they came across a cheerily-lit inn with a plaque hanging over the door with the words "The Eagle and Crown" written in red letters. It swung on its hinges in the slight breeze.

They entered through the squeaky wooden door, and were greeted by a pleasant, raucous peel of laughter from the bar towards the back of the room. Candles lit the small tavern with a cheery glow, and a fire roared in the corner. For the first time since their last night in Philadelphia, Arthur actually felt warm.

The Barmaid, who was wearing a rather flattering ensemble which Arthur didn’t fail to appreciate, looked up from the bar as they entered. “Can you I help you boys?” She asked, approaching them. A few mugs of ale were resting on the tray which she carried, and looked awfully tempting to Arthur. But, he thought with a sigh, he did have a duty to Alfred. If he had one, he was viable to have more, and he simply wouldn’t allow the child to see him inebriated.

“Yes”, said Arthur, “You wouldn’t happen to have any rooms free for a few nights?”

The Barmaid thought for a second. “I’ve got a room, if you’ve got money”, she eyed them appraisingly, saw their soot-stained clothes and dirty faces.

Arthur dug around in his coat pocket, there were a few loose coins jangling around in there. He had more in the knapsack, but this was far more convenient. “Will this do?” He asked, placing them into her out-stretched hand. She counted the coins, then nodded, handing her tray of mouth-watering beverages to another girl. 

“Follow me”. She led them up the rough wood stairs, and down a narrow hall, into a small but clean room. “You can get some dinner downstairs”, she said, turning to leave. “Let me know if you ... need anything”. She gave Arthur a significant look. If only Alfred wasn’t here. But _that_ would be highly inappropriate.

“I think we’re okay”, he said, and she shrugged, closing the door behind her.

Arthur and Alfred briefly contemplated going down for dinner, but at that point, the need for a good night’s sleep overcame even the most awful food pangs. So tired were they that they practically collapsed into bed. Arthur’s bath would have to wait until the morning.

Not able to keep his eyes open any longer, Arthur was just about to drift off to sleep, when Alfred spoke. “Arthur?” He asked through the darkness of the small room.

“Yes?” Arthur mumbled, half-asleep.

“What if it happens again? What if they try to kill us? I’m scared!"

"Hey”, Arthur said, opening his eyes with some difficulty. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure that no one ever hurts you again. I promise”. Even though he couldn’t see it, he could tell that Alfred was smiling. He snuggled up close to Arthur, who fell into a deep and peaceful sleep... 

* * *

A week passed. Arthur was finally able to get that bath he'd been so desperately craving ("You _do_ clean up nice", the Barmaid commented), and after a few days, they were able to acquire a more permanent residence. It was a small town house, made of bricks, in a quiet part of the city, with a bit of shrubbery out front and a little garden out back.

Arthur had been a bit worried, at first, that Alfred might begin to chaff at the lack of wilderness around, but three years of semi-civilized life seemed to have miraculously bestowed the boy with more confidence in populated areas. He had lost his energetic attitude in the least, however, and often insisted on going for long walks in the market, or another, equally noisy area, and just watching all of the different people that came to the city.

He was beginning to see it as his, the city, and all of the people in it, Arthur could tell. It had happened to him once, so long ago. One day, he'd simply had an epiphany as he looked from a tower window out onto London, that everything was _his_. It had filled him with such a strange sense of pride to see his people building and growing, becoming stronger with each passing year. And now, it seemed, the same feeling had dawned on Alfred.

There was a little voice in the back of Arthur's mind as he saw the child laugh and jump, sparkles in his eyes, at the growth of the colonies that remained uneasy. _They're not his_ , the voice would say, _they’re yours. If you encourage this kind of behavior, then he may one day want to take them from you_. But Arthur pushed those evil thoughts out of his head. Sweet, innocent Alfred couldn't possibly do a thing like that, a thing so … malicious. He was only a child, after all.

It was on one of these many walks of theirs that everything changed. Again. Alfred had been admiring one of the locally grown apples in a stall at the busy market, Arthur keeping an eye on him, when he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned, coming face to face with someone very familiar. He wore a navy uniform, a sailing master probably, and was very young, maybe only twenty. He had dark, freckled skin, not uncommon for sailors, who worked outside in the hot sun.

"Captain Kirkland?" He asked in disbelief. Now Arthur could place him, the distinctive Scottish accent gave him away. He was the Swabbie from old Bess, the one whom Arthur had made captain those three and a half years ago.

"Ethan!" He exclaimed, remembering the boy's name now. He shook his hand. "It's been a long time, my old friend. How's life been treating you?"

"Splendidly", he said, grinning sheepishly, "I joined the navy as soon as I was old enough. And I was recently appointed Sailing Master (1)".

"That's wonderful!"

"And it's all thanks to you", he said. "You taught me a lot in those two years. And what about you?" He added. "I never thought I'd see my old captain in _America_ , with a _family_ none-the-less", he nodded to Alfred, who had since purchased his apple and was loudly chomping through its shiny, red surface as he listened to them talk.

"A family?" Arthur asked, momentarily confused. "Oh!" He understood. "He's not mine! He's like … my little brother", he said, putting an arm around Alfred's shoulder. "Poor boy didn't have anybody to look after him, so I sort of took him under my wing".

Alfred smiled up at him, and took another huge bite out of his apple that was largely disproportionate to the actual size of his mouth.

"So, how are things in England?" Arthur asked.

"Ruddy awful", Ethan replied earnestly, shaking his head. "King James is a bloody Catholic, after all (2)".

Arthur's grip tightened on Alfred's shoulder, who didn't seem to notice. "King _James_? What happened to Charles?"

"He died more than a year ago, Mate", Ethan laughed, "Where have you been living? Under a rock?"

"Things have been … somewhat hectic around here lately".

They talked for a few more minutes before parting ways, but Arthur's mind hadn't been on the conversation. Charlie, his old friend, was dead, and he hadn't even been there to see him off. He'd forgotten that he was mortal, that he was going to die, and it kind of hurt, he had to admit. But more importantly than his feelings was the fact that another, wholly unpleasant man now sat on the throne of England. He needed to go back, that much was certain. With Charlie dead, there was simply no one to tell the new monarch about his existence, and the more he waited, the harder it would be to explain the situation.

The bugger of it all would be that he couldn't take Alfred with him. He had no idea how long he'd be gone, and trying to keep Alfred calm and quiet while he dealt with inevitably long and tedious matters would not be good for anyone present. And as much as he hated to admit it, his credibility as a Nation would go down in the eyes of the new monarch if he was accompanied by a child.

Alfred made a big fuss when he told him. "No! You can't leave!" He begged. "Not you too!" He glomphed Arthur as per usual, his tears staining his shirt. It broke his heart a little, but he didn't really have any choice.

"I'll only be gone a few months", he said, trying not to tear up himself, "And then things will go back to normal, alright?"

"But", the boy began, "But what if it happens again? What if I have to run and you can't find me?"

"You forget you're a Nation, my boy", Arthur said, "I'll be able to find you wherever you go". It was a lie, he didn't have a Nation Compass, remember? But it seemed to cheer the boy up, who sniffed up his tears, ran a hand under his nose.

He nodded. "Okay".

So, Arthur had booked passage on a merchant ship bound for London, and spent a last few, happy days with Alfred, seeing the sights of Boston, smiling and laughing, but he couldn't help the sinking feeling that this would be the last time. And then the big day came, and after a brief farewell on the dock, the ship pulled out of the harbor, away from America, and back to the Mother Land.

Alfred stood on the end of the dock for as long as he could, watching the ship, and his brother, leave him behind. He was alone again. It wasn't a good feeling.

Arthur stood on the deck, breathed in the salty ocean air that he hadn't tasted for the longest time. He had a strange, twisted feeling in his gut as he thought of Alfred back on the dock, back in America. It was a guilty feeling. But Arthur shook himself. It had been a nice dream while it had lasted, but now it was time to get back to work...

* * *

 

**Historical Notes:**

(1) The British Navy had two distinctive ranking systems, one for Nobles, and one for Commoners. A commoner couldn't become a captain, or anything fancy like that, but he can become a Sailing Master, which is one of the highest ranked positions, and is largely in charge of the ship.

(2) After Charles II died, his brother James II took the throne. Being Catholic, he met large resistance from the British people, and his short reign ended in 1688 when the people, led by William of Orange, abdicated him in a Glorious Revolution.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking of putting shameless plugs in for the song I've really been grooving on from week to week 'cuz music helps me write. So this week is "Dual of the Fates" by John WIlliams from Star Wars Episode I. Say what you will about the prequel trilogy, but this song friggin' rocks! It is basically the song of my childhood.


	5. Interlogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome back again, everyone! Yes, yes, I know this chapter is super short, and just what's with this interlogue crap? A major time shift is about to happen, and I thought it'd be easier to have a nice little transition chapter than to try to jump right into it, so here you go.

Interlogue

The boy wandered his land. It was vast, and wide, with blue mountains and green forests, orange deserts and yellow prairies filled with grass that blew in the wind like waves on the sea, waves that even now, his brother was rolling over with his big ship, away from his land. The boy was lonely, though he didn’t want to admit it, even to himself. So he filled the days and nights with the search. Because he promised to find it, and you never break a promise.

Davie showed it to him in one of his books. _Look Alfred! Isn’t that the most beautiful flower you’ve ever seen?_ The boy had shrugged, he’d seen others like it. But it was oh so important to Davie, who wanted to be a bot ... botan ... the boy didn’t know how to pronounce it. _It’s called a Botanist, silly. It’s the study of plants._ And as they played in the forests that the people now called New England, after his brother, all of the way across the ocean, Davie told the boy of his dream.

_That flower is the rarest in the world_. He pointed to the flower, blue, with petals as delicate as tissue paper, in his book. _And I’m going to be the first person to find it in the New World!_ The boy thought privately that the New World was far bigger than Davie supposed it was. He’d never be able to travel to all of the places he wanted to in search of his prize. But this gave the boy an idea: Maybe _he_ could.

For a moment, he’d been worried that his brother wouldn’t be able to find him when he came back if he left the city. But then he remembered: _I’ll be able to find you wherever you go_. And so the boy said goodbye to the big city, and left on his journey. He didn’t say goodbye to Davie, for he was sure that he’d only be gone for a month, tops.

Off he went on his seemingly endless search for his prize, through the forests and the mountains, the deserts and the prairies, but to no avail. The blue flower eluded him still. And yet, he continued to search for it, crisscrossing his land back and forth again and again, till he was sure that he knew the whole of it by heart. Through humid marshes and cold, rocky hills, through wide, sloping plains and hidden valleys, but still, he could not find it.

The boy, at last, hung his head in defeat. His sister, with her knowledge of the land and everything in it, would have found the flower in a month. His brother, with his maps and compasses, would have found it sooner still. But the boy realized that he was neither his brother nor his sister, and that they were not here to help him. They were disappeared and over the sea and everywhere but where the boy needed them most. He was alone in his land.

In shame, the boy decided to return to the city, and tell Davie just how sorry he was, how he had failed. So the boy traveled back over his land, back towards the city and the sea. And when his journey was at an end and he came upon that great city, that beacon of civilization, he thought that it looked different somehow. Taller, bigger maybe, even more enormous than before. But to his relief, he was still able to find Davie’s house without much difficulty.

However, he knew that there was something wrong the minute he approached. The last time he’d been here, the house had been newly built, a pretty white wood with tasteful trim. But now it looked older. The paint was fading, and chipped in places, and the wood near the moist foundation was beginning to rot.

“Davie?” The boy called, hoping that he was here. There was no sound for a moment; the boy waited. And then, at last, he heard it: the sound of children playing. He trundled around the side of the house, and there in the back garden was an older man playing with two kids: a girl with curly brown ringlets that bounced as she moved, and a young boy with his back to him that must have been Davie. “Davie!” He yelled to the boy, and all three turned to him. The boy was not Davie. The older man, to the boy’s shock, was.

_Yes?_ Davie smiled, not unkindly. But there was no recognition in his eyes. He didn’t remember the boy.

“It’s me”, he said, trying to jog Davie’s memory, “Alfred”.

_Do I know your parents?_

“No! You know ... you know me ...” The boy began. But he could already see that it was no use. Davie didn’t remember him. Didn’t remember all of the times they’d played in the forest and talked and laughed. Then a thought occurred to him: maybe if he found the flower, then he would. He’d remember his dreams of botany and how he’d told them to the boy.

“I’ll ... I’ll find your flower”, he said, and ran.

It hurt. It hurt so badly to be forgotten. And it hurt that the boy had lost his friend, the one person he could have talked to. Even if he _had_ remembered the boy, Davie had done the one thing that the boy could never do: he had grown up. He had children of his own, a family, a perfectly ordinary human life. The boy would never be able to have any of those things.

But there was still one thing he _could_ do: he could find his flower. He increased his search ten-fold. Back through the forests, mountains, deserts, prairies, marshes, plains, hills, and valleys he searched. And this time, he _wouldn’t_ give up, _couldn’t_ give up. He’d find the darn thing if he had to search for a hundred years, a thousand even.

Luckily, it didn’t take quite that long. In a small, quiet glade, ironically close to the city where he’d spent so much of his life, he found it. It glistened with the morning dew, perfect, standing on its toes as if reaching to the sky that its color so resembled. It waited there, just for him, and gently, gently, the boy plucked it from the earth, careful not to mar its perfect beauty.

Prize in hand, he ran back to the city, laughing and smiling. It felt strange to smile, something that he hadn’t done in such a long time now. And then he came upon the old house once again. Most of the paint was gone, chipped off piece by piece by the rain and wind, and the house sat lop-sided on the ground, one side of the foundation having given completely into rot.

“Davie?” He called. But he heard only silence. “Davie?” He asked the house again, hoping that maybe in its infinite wisdom it would answer him. But all it could do was sit there with decrepit knowledge, and glance smugly at him. The boy ran around the side of the house, hoping to find the children playing as they had before. There were no happy, smiling children. There was only a man gazing sadly down into a long, wooden box.

The boy approached the scene hesitantly, sensing that there was something wrong. “Davie?” He asked once more. The man turned. He was not Davie. His expression was hollow, and two symmetrical tear-tracks ran down his face, which told the boy that he’d recently been crying.

_He’s in there_. The man nodded towards the box.

With trepidation, the boy pattered up to the box. The flower still clutched in his hand, he stood on his tip-toes, and glanced down beyond the rim. Davie was sleeping inside. “Davie? Wake up”. He poked the old man’s face, but he didn’t move, didn’t even twitch. His skin was cold to the touch. “But ...” The boy began.

_He’s dead. Kicking up the daisies, past the pearly gates, deceased. D. E. A. D. What do I need to say to get that into your thick skull, kid?_

“But he can’t be”, the boy sniffled, tears beginning to flow. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair. “I did it. I found his flower. He _can’t_ be!” The boy dropped the flower, and left it in the staining mud, and ran. He ran away from that house, the city, and most of all, the dead man in the box, who had used to be so young and full of life. Never again, the boy would never subject himself to this horrible pain, pain that felt like his chest would explode, ever again.

_Never again_.

The man glanced downward at the flower on the ground. He picked it up, examined it closely, his eyebrows crinkling together. _I can’t believe it. That little twerp found your flower, Dad._ Then, with gentle care, he placed that perfect thing in the box, and closed the lid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise I'll have a full chapter next week! Song of the Chapter is "Baba Yetu", Composed by Christopher Tin for Civilization IV, which is also a great game. My choir's singing it currently, and I've been wanting to sing it for years! So I'm super excited.


End file.
